


Cracks

by heartsdesire456



Series: Coulson Family Fics [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s01e13 T.R.A.C.K.S., Family Feels, M/M, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 14:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1269679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsdesire456/pseuds/heartsdesire456
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There was still blood on his hands when Phil called Clint, sitting on the floor beside the hyperbaric chamber where Skye lay. When he answered, Phil rested his elbows on his knees, head hanging, and spoke in a nearly broken voice.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Clint… it’s Skye.”</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Set after Episode 1.13: T.R.A.C.K.S.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cracks

**Author's Note:**

> This is ridiculously late posting, since I had like 3 weeks to finish this fic, but I honestly just got caught up in other writing and writers block. I pretty much wrote all of this one night then abandoned it and wrote the last scene or two and now I'm posting. BUT it's just another part of the series!

There was still blood on his hands when Phil called Clint, sitting on the floor beside the hyperbaric chamber where Skye lay. When he answered, Phil rested his elbows on his knees, head hanging, and spoke in a nearly broken voice.

“Clint… it’s Skye.”

~

Clint sat up so fast he knocked Tony’s whisky out of his hand. “What about her?” he asked quickly and everybody stilled, listening suddenly. 

Phil’s voice was weak in a way that terrified Clint. “We’re on our way to New York. The Bus is too big to land on a helicarrier so we’re going as fast as we can, but she-“ Clint’s heart sank when Phil avoided just saying what happened. “God, Clint, I thought she was dead. She practically was.”

“Shit,” Clint breathed, pulling at his hair with his free hand. He stood up. “What happened?” he asked tightly.

“Ian Quinn,” Phil said in a deathly calm tone that told Clint that someone really might die soon. “He shot her in the abdomen. Twice.”

Clint paled. Abdominal wounds were always really bad. He’d only been hit in the abdomen once and he’d nearly bled to death. Even chest shots were less dangerous as long as it missed the heart because a punctured lung was easier to fix and bled slower. “Shit. How bad?”

“Very,” Phil said in a strained voice. “She didn’t have a pulse. She lost too much blood and there was no pulse when I found her.” Clint sat down heavily on the couch. “There was a hyperbaric chamber in the room. Simmons had us put her in there. Right now her core temperature is extremely low. We have to get her to medical before there’s any permanent brain damage. It’s… it’s bad, Clint.”

Clint put his head in his free hand. “When do you get back?”

“Hopefully in a couple of hours. If not then Skye-“ Clint closed his eyes when Phil’s voice cracked. “Clint, she’s my _daughter_ ,” he said weakly.

Clint knew exactly what Phil meant even if he didn’t say the words, because he had grown to love Skye like family, too. She wasn’t a child, she wasn’t _his_ child, but Skye and Phil were still his _family_. When Phil ended the call since FitzSimmons had returned, he let his phone fall and stared down at his hands. Clint was completely at a loss. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He was the one who got hurt. Skye wasn’t meant to go into situations that could end in combat, so she wasn’t supposed to end up in the line of fire to take a bullet to begin with. She was supposed to stay behind at command and coordinate, not partake in the violence.

“Tweety, you okay?” Clint looked up and realized everybody was still staring and Tony was patting his shoulder. “What happened? Was that Agent?” he asked.

Clint nodded. Natasha looked at him closely. “Is May down?”

Clint shook his head. “No. Skye is,” he said in a feeble tone that startled even him. 

“What?!” Tony asked. “No! Not my baby hacker! What happened? Is she going to be okay? How did she end up in danger, she’s not even an actual agent!”

“Clint?” Bruce’s soft tone caught Clint’s attention and he looked at him, even though he’d avoided eye contact with Tony and Natasha. “Is she okay?”

Clint sucked in a breath and shook his head. “If they can get her back here to medical in a few hours, she has a chance. But… it’s bad. Two in the abdomen at point blank,” he said and Natasha actually winced slightly. More like a twitch of her lips but it was more of a wince than Clint usually saw. “When Phil found her, she didn’t have a pulse. There was a hyperbaric chamber in the room so they put her in there and brought down her temperature and raised the pressure, so it’s holding for now, but much longer at low temps and she’ll lose brain function.”

Nobody said anything and Clint knew they all knew there was nothing to say to make it sound any less dismal than it really was.

~

Phil and Simmons were the only ones sitting outside the surgical suite where Skye had been taken. May and Ward had gone somewhere – Phil really didn’t want to know – and Fitz hadn’t wanted to sit around waiting. The doors burst open and Phil looked up, hopeful that it was Clint, only to see Fury striding in. “Coulson, what the hell is going on?” he demanded and Simmons jumped so hard she nearly elbowed Phil in the face.

Phil stood up slowly. He was filled with the familiar ache of distrust he’d had every time he ignored his friend’s calls since he remembered, but he was too tired to bother. “Not now, Sir-“

“Oh yes now,” he said and Phil looked up to see May striding in behind him.

“Sir, perhaps now isn’t the time-“

Fury held up a hand to her and turned back to Phil. “Why is your consultant – that I advised against from the beginning – in emergency surgery, and more than that, why the hell has she changed her legal name to Skye Coulson recently?”

Phil gave him a beleaguered glare. “Why the fuck do you think, Nick?” he asked bluntly, startling Simmons into gaping in shock. 

Fury glared. “If you married a twenty-four year old girl-“

“Wait, you don’t know?” Simmons asked, then squeaked, covering her mouth. “Um, Sir.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “I don’t know everything, Simmons, so why don’t you enlighten me.” He turned to Phil. “Are you really that stupid?”

“No I’m not that stupid, Nick, and if you knew me half as well as you should after twenty-six damn years, you would know I’m already married, bigamy is illegal, and incest is even more illegal,” he said and Nick looked shocked. He sighed heavily. “Skye is my daughter. I thought you would know. SHIELD hid the records well enough. I guess it wasn’t brought up at all since your tenure as director-“

“And he’s _my_ husband.” Phil turned around, shoulders sagging in relief when he saw Clint striding from the opposite end of the hallway. Clint rushed the last few steps and pulled Phil into his arms. “Jesus, how is she?”

Phil deflated, pressing his face into Clint’s neck. “Barely hanging on, but she’s still fighting.”

“What the hell?” Fury asked and Clint looked up, glaring at him. Fury gaped. “When the hell did- how do you even know he’s-“

“Alive?” Clint snarled. “No thanks to SHIELD,” he spat, hands fisting in Phil’s jacket. “Thanks for erasing me from my husband’s memory. Great job. Top secret spy organization not even making sure a man doesn’t have a husband before you _fuck with his brain_.”

May gave Clint a stern look and he raised an eyebrow. She turned to Fury and nodded. “Sir, maybe you should give them a moment?”

“I don’t have to give them a damn thing,” he argued, only to be cut off from continuing by Simmons.

“Sir, I mean this with as much respect as possible, but _their daughter_ nearly _died_ and is not out of the woods yet! They deserve to be left alone!” she said fiercely, then paled. “Um… Director Fury, sir.”

Clint pulled away and leaned his forehead to Phil’s. “Are you okay?”

Phil sighed, smiling sadly. “What do you think?” he asked, reaching up to cup Clint’s jaw. “I need to have a conversation with Nick. Can you go find something to do for just a little while?”

Clint nodded, leaning in to kiss Phil sweetly. “I’ll be around,” he whispered before pulling away.

~

Clint dropped out of the ceiling in the holding cell, startling the prisoner cuffed to the table he sat in front of. “HOLY SHIT!” 

Clint stalked closer, eyes narrowed. “Ian Quinn?” he asked, though he knew who it was.

“What do you want? Are you even supposed to be here?” he asked.

Clint walked around the table. “Mr. Quinn, you and I are going to have a talk,” he said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “About your _orders_ ,” he said, and in one fast movement, he went from patting Quinn’s shoulder to slamming his head into the table, startling a cry out of him.

“HEY! You can’t do that! Fuuuuck.” Quinn sat up with a bloody nose. 

Clint grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back. “This would be a good time to tell you that I cut the video feeds,” he said, slamming him into the table again, earning another sharp cry. “And that Skye, the girl you shot? Her last name is Coulson.” He snatched his head back and saw actual worry in Quinn’s eyes.

“As in Agent Coulson?” he asked roughly, and Clint smirked.

“As in Agent Coulson is her father,” he confirmed, then snatched his head back until his neck was bent at a sharp angle. “And wanna take a wild guess who I am?” he whispered and Quinn swallowed, throat bobbling.

“Her- her boyfriend?” he rasped out and Clint gritted his teeth in a somewhat deranged smile.

“My last name is Coulson too,” he said in a low voice, almost a whisper. “You shot my husband’s daughter and there’s no guarantee she’s going to live,” he muttered, before slamming Quinn’s head into the table once more, even harder this time so that he heard the satisfying ‘crunch’ of his nose breaking, followed by a cry of pain. 

“SHIELD won’t like it if you kill me! I know things! Things they want to ask me-“ Clint punched him in the jaw, shutting him up.

“I’m not SHIELD, I’m a pissed off stepdad, you son of a bitch,” he hissed. He drew him in, far too satisfied by the blood streaming from Quinn’s nose and mouth. “If she lives, SHIELD gets you. If she dies? You’ll wish SHIELD got you. Either way, this doesn’t end well for you.”

Clint turned and stepped onto the table, stopping under the hole in the ceiling before glancing down once more. “You’re lucky Skye’s father is too scared to be angry, because I promise you, he wouldn’t be as gentle as I am,” Clint said harshly before jumping and catching the edges of the opening, pulling himself up and out of sight. He smirked at the absolutely rattled look in Quinn’s eyes as he slid the tile back into place and started making his getaway before the feed looped back around and SHIELD noticed someone had beaten their prisoner. 

~

Nobody commented on Directory Fury’s busted lip when he and Coulson came back to wait to see how the surgery went. Phil sat down beside Simmons, who patted his shoulder comfortingly, and Fury stood facing ahead just like May, hands behind his back. Neither of them commented either when Clint came from the ceiling tiles above them – startling a scream out of Simmons – and flopped down on the opposite side of Coulson from Simmons, reaching out to grab Phil’s hand and squeeze. Nobody said a single thing about the blood still flecking Clint’s hands, either.

Everyone was silent as they settled in to wait for news about Skye.


End file.
